[time-nuts] Re: Vectron 380 teardown
Hi The design traces back to the Efratom “EMXO” from the 1980’s. Vectron bought the rights to that design and produced examples of it for about a decade or so. Bob > On Jan 14, 2022, at 3:20 PM, Attila Kinali wrote: > > On Fri, 14 Jan 2022 17:44:22 + > Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > >> https://twitter.com/EvilMnkyzDsignz/status/1482039903995273216 > > Now that's an interesting design. > My first thought was, "hell, using /two/ ceramic carriers > for PCBs and using gold wires to connect them to eachother, > that must have been a hell of an expensive DIL-14 oscillator". > > Then I looked at the Datasheet [1] (ok appnote) and guess what, > that's no mere oscillator. That's a bona-fide OCXO. Vacuum packaged, > nonetheless! Sure, it doesn't have the best stability compared to > other OCXO, but compared to other DIL-14 sized OCXO, it's actually > quite good. And it's only the size of a regular XO too! > And this also explains the need for ceramic: an FR4 PCB would$ > have too much outgasing that would then lead to drift. > > Lovely device! > > (Still think it's probably quite expensive) > > Attila Kinali > > [1] https://www.vectron.com/products/ocxo/EMXO-380-385.pdf > -- > The driving force behind research is the question: "Why?" > There are things we don't understand and things we always > wonder about. And that's why we do research. > -- Kobayashi Makoto > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an > email to time-nuts-le...@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-le...@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
[time-nuts] Re: Vectron 380 teardown
On Fri, 14 Jan 2022 21:20:03 +0100 Attila Kinali wrote: > Then I looked at the Datasheet [1] (ok appnote) and guess what, > that's no mere oscillator. That's a bona-fide OCXO. Vacuum packaged, > nonetheless! Sure, it doesn't have the best stability compared to > other OCXO, but compared to other DIL-14 sized OCXO, it's actually > quite good. And it's only the size of a regular XO too! > And this also explains the need for ceramic: an FR4 PCB would$ > have too much outgasing that would then lead to drift. Some additional info can be found in https://patents.google.com/patent/US5917272 and https://patents.google.com/patent/US6731180 It looks like the device follows more closely the latter patent than the former. Attila Kinali -- The driving force behind research is the question: "Why?" There are things we don't understand and things we always wonder about. And that's why we do research. -- Kobayashi Makoto ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-le...@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
[time-nuts] Re: Vectron 380 teardown
On Fri, 14 Jan 2022 17:44:22 + Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > https://twitter.com/EvilMnkyzDsignz/status/1482039903995273216 Now that's an interesting design. My first thought was, "hell, using /two/ ceramic carriers for PCBs and using gold wires to connect them to eachother, that must have been a hell of an expensive DIL-14 oscillator". Then I looked at the Datasheet [1] (ok appnote) and guess what, that's no mere oscillator. That's a bona-fide OCXO. Vacuum packaged, nonetheless! Sure, it doesn't have the best stability compared to other OCXO, but compared to other DIL-14 sized OCXO, it's actually quite good. And it's only the size of a regular XO too! And this also explains the need for ceramic: an FR4 PCB would$ have too much outgasing that would then lead to drift. Lovely device! (Still think it's probably quite expensive) Attila Kinali [1] https://www.vectron.com/products/ocxo/EMXO-380-385.pdf -- The driving force behind research is the question: "Why?" There are things we don't understand and things we always wonder about. And that's why we do research. -- Kobayashi Makoto ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-le...@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
[time-nuts] Re: Vectron 380 teardown
Hi Just over 12 years old when he chopped it open. Bob > On Jan 14, 2022, at 12:44 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > > With high praise for aesthetics even: > > https://twitter.com/EvilMnkyzDsignz/status/1482039903995273216 > > -- > Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 > p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956 > FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an > email to time-nuts-le...@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-le...@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
[time-nuts] Vectron 380 teardown
With high praise for aesthetics even: https://twitter.com/EvilMnkyzDsignz/status/1482039903995273216 -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-le...@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
